Transportation's looming overhaul

What's happening: A historic shift to cleaner, more economical, automated transportation is underway.

• More than 1,400 self-driving cars, trucks and other vehicles are being tested across the country, according to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
• Electric cars are going mainstream, with 35 battery-powered models available in U.S. showrooms next year and 130 by 2026, per IHS Markit.
• Cities are rolling out electric bus and rail systems to try to curb emissions as well as congestion pricing to reduce traffic.
• Fledgling microtransit systems — from on-demand shuttles to e-bikes and scooters — aim to fill the transportation gap in some cities.
• UPS just won permission to launch the first commercial drone delivery service and Uber, Boeing, Google and others are developing air taxis.

All of this change is roiling an industry that provides jobs to 13.3 million people in the U.S. and represents a 9% slice of the U.S. economy.

• The future, industry leaders predict, is a clean, highly-tuned, multimodal transportation system that includes shared, connected vehicles running on electrons rather than gasoline and in which driving is optional.

But that vision is being challenged by unforeseen technical hurdles, crumbling infrastructure and a stalled-out federal government that has yet to create standards and regulations for the coming changes, leaving strapped states struggling to step in.

• Meanwhile, cars, trucks, planes and ships continue to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accounting for nearly 22% of global carbon emissions in 2018, per the IEA.
• President Trump has gone to battle with California over auto emissions laws, causing regulatory uncertainty for automakers during what is likely to be a long court battle.
• All the while, a culture of convenience is fueling a fast delivery system that is putting more vehicles on the road and more CO2 in the air.
• Companies have to solve the stubborn technical challenges associated with AVs and EVs, but also figure out how to make money from vehicles that consumers aren't interested in or don't trust.
• The world's largest automakers — once drivers of employment and the economy — are also weathering labor disputes and are caught up in politics as trade wars persist and the global economy is reordered.

What to watch: The specter of disruption is triggering enormous R&D investment by automakers fearful of becoming the next Kodak, Blockbuster or BlackBerry.

• Spending on AVs, by both traditional automakers and newcomers, is forecast to grow to a cumulative $85 billion through 2025 — on top of the $225 billion spending for EVs, according to Alix Partners.
• They're all chasing a multitrillion-dollar global market that Boston Consulting Group says is worth $380 billion in profits.
• But there's no guarantee any of it will pay off.

"It’s a gamble based on what you think will happen, but if you don’t do anything, then for sure you’re out of business," says Mike Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner.

Romney, who wrote in his wife, Ann, when he voted in 2016, has only soured on Trump since then:

• On race: "The places where I would be most critical of the president would be in matters that were divisive, that appeared to be appealing to racism or misogyny. And those are the kinds of things I think that have been most, most harmful long term to the foundation of America's virtuous character."
• On Trump’s personal life: "He has elements, I'm sure, of honor in his life. And there's things that I think are not honorable. And I mention that because of the payment to a porn star for sexual relations outside of marriage. Look, I'm one of those who believes that we have a responsibility to be honorable and faithful to our wives."
• On calling on China to probe Joe Biden: "We certainly can't have presidents asking foreign countries to provide something of political value. That is, after all, against the law."
• On abandoning the Kurds: “A very dark spot in America's history. We should never abandon our friends.”
• Comparing Trump’s actions to Barack Obama’s ignoring the red line he drew in Syria: "This is worse than that, because it says ... America will walk away from his friends and from its allies."
• On character: "People will recognize that character really is important in our leaders and that it's important for our leaders to do things that unify us, that welcome people who come here legally as immigrants, that in no way signal to anybody in America that they're less of an American because of where they came from or their sexual orientation or their race or their religion."

Talking to me at his home outside Salt Lake City, Romney made it clear that he's open to voting to remove Trump.

• Romney — a former Massachusetts governor, and his party's presidential candidate in 2012 — wants to be seen as a fair juror, and would have a high bar: He pointed out that presidents have done things that were wrong or perhaps even illegal, and not been removed from office.
• But Romney, who has called Trump's pleas for China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens "wrong and appalling," went even further with me: "It was shocking, in my opinion, for the president to do so — and a mistake for him to do. I can't imagine coming to a different point of view."

Go deeper:

• Lindsey Graham open to other evidence on impeachment
• Mitt Romney: Republicans keep quiet on Trump because they fear Elizabeth Warren
• Mitt Romney opposes cutting capital gains tax rate for the rich

• Giuliani has a wide range of foreign clients despite serving as Trump's personal attorney, which has put many on edge.
• "There's this sense of paranoia here," one administration official tells me.
• More alarm bells rang this week after the Washington Post reportedthat Giuliani had privately urged Trump to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, something Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked for repeatedly.

On Capitol Hill, those investigating Trump tell me they are still committed to keeping their investigation tightly focused on Ukraine in order to wrap up their impeachment inquiry as quickly and efficiently as possible.

• However, that could change if more information about Giuliani emerges.
• "I think Rudy has a lot to answer for," said Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who sits on the House Oversight and Intelligence committees.
• "We don't know who he was working on behalf of at any given time — it's not just President Trump."
• Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, some Trump officials say the only person who can rein in Giuliani is the president himself.

• Trump's former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, told members of Congress earlier this month that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was helpless to stop Giuliani's involvement, according to sources with direct knowledge of his closed-door testimony.
• "I'm sure [Pompeo] could have called Rudy Giuliani, but would Rudy Giuliani stop what he's doing because the secretary of state calls him? I'd be surprised," Volker said.

This morning on "ABC This Week," George Stephanopoulos asked Pompeo whether he gave Giuliani his blessing to act on behalf of the State Department.

• Pompeo said it's his policy not to discuss internal deliberations publicly, despite the fact that Giuliani does not work for the administration.
• Pompeo also refused to answer whether Giuliani was reviewed for potential conflicts of interest, amid revelations that he had business interests in Ukraine at the same time he was pushing officials to open an investigation into Joe Biden, Axios' Zach Basu notes.

Trump transition flagged Rudy concerns in 2016

These concerns with Giuliani aren't new:

• As far back as November 2016, a source who worked on the Trump transition team told Jonathan Swan, a colleague “walked back into the war room after an hour on the phone with Giuliani. He had a few pieces of notebook paper covered front and back with notes on red flags, and he looked like he’d just seen a ghost."
• “Not good, guys. Not. Good,” the colleague said, according to the source. A second source with direct knowledge confirmed the account.

In June, Axios broke a story about leaked vetting documents that the Trump transition team and the Republican National Committee compiled in the fall of 2016. While vetting Giuliani, they found so many red flags that he was ultimately prevented from serving at the State Department.

• Giuliani’s file was so thick, they took the rare step of producing a separate dossier to cover his extensive foreign business entanglements.
• A former Trump transition team member said senior Trump aides made clear that Giuliani could not be confirmed as secretary of state because of his foreign business ties, and the job of the vetting team was to show Giuliani why “he really shouldn’t put himself through a Senate confirmation.”
• "The extensive amount of work that I've done in the 80 or plus countries that I've been to in the last 17 years is what would've qualified me to be an excellent secretary of state," Giuliani said after Axios explained the contents of the documents to him in June. "Would you prefer someone who hasn't been overseas?"

"Sure. I mean ... show me something that ... is a crime," Graham told Axios' Jonathan Swan. "If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing."

• "As to asking China to look into Biden, that was stupid. ... Bad idea. That didn't last very long. I think that's a frustrated Trump."

But Trump's Ukraine call isn't impeachable on its own, Graham said: "I've read the transcript of the Ukrainian phone call. That's not a quid pro quo to me."

• The interview was Tuesday, before acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney gave Thursday's "quid pro quo" briefing.
• Graham's spokesperson, Kevin Bishop, said Friday that Graham still has not heard or seen anything that he deems impeachable.

The big picture: Trump's loosening hold on Graham reflects the mess the president has created for himself in the past two weeks.

• At the very time he needs a Republican fortress against impeachment, GOP lawmakers are furious at him over his rash pullback in Syria.
• In the interview, Graham called Trump's abandonment of the Kurds "dishonorable" and a "sh*tshow."

Graham said he's changed his view of Trump's character since opposing him during the 2016 primaries:

• "I've got to know him, and I find him to be a handful," Graham said. "I find him to be an equal opportunity abuser of people. But at the end of the day, he can be very charming and be very gracious, and I'm judging him by his conduct."

Graham, a Trump golfing companion, said he continues to support Trump's presidency because he's "a Republican. I like his domestic policies. So you play the ball as it lies."

• "If I spent all day analyzing every tweet he issued, I'd go nuts."